Crazy Relic User FEARS the expansion. Are they going to be useless?

[Yukiko]

Once there was a time where yoshi-p himself said relict will be the best weapon in game, just not at beginning of the quest... patch after patch it seems he changed mind more and more!
Maybe he ment in FFXIV:ARR v5.0, i am losing interest little by little...

[Windklinge]

guys get over it. thats the bane of the lazy dev way aka increasing the level cap of a mmo. blame blizz for making it popular and most uncreative way to create the feeling of progression while it is in fact more a reset. imo there were alot of successful mmos out there who never raised thier level cap and it was fine.

the level cap raises means everything WILL beginning a new. everything. they will never exclude relics from that since it makes no sense to force new players trough all that USELESS lvl 50 grind because some veterans did it sometime in the past. i say useless because : currently IF you finish zodiac next week it will be BIS weapon. even better than t13 weapon for some classes because custom stats. but once we have lvl 60 it is not BIS anymore. its weak and outdated. hence the grind is no longer JUSTIFIED. nuff said.

how excatly they will handle the transition is not something anyone will know before 3.1 which is not before august 2015 i am sure of that. so there is plenty of time left till then. yes i own a zodiac weapon myself. but i dont expect it to stay during a cap raise. only thing you can do is blame the devs for beeing uncreative with the expansion and adding vertical progress instead of horizontal one. skills could be adding without a cap raise there is enough examples of it. they didnt choose that way and went the lazy route with a simple max level raise. this means all our efforts until now dont matter anymore the second heavensward is released. thats just how these types of xpacs work. thats also why some people ask to unlock coil at this point because its the last time it will be run and be useful loot wise before it gets so outdated nobody will run it anymore.

[FranSeara]

My question is "If relic weapon will have no value, then what weapons will relic user use??" Some people keep stating, "Relics are going away" So,where are they going and what happens to ALL the players who all of sudden have no weapons to use?? I wish people would only state FACTS. I really dont think a NEW player who hits 50 after the expansion will get an item level 130-140 weapon to start to upgrade as a "Expansion Relic Reborn" This wouldn't be "catch up", it would hand out.

[Alberel]

Nobody said that the quest 2.X Relic&Zodiac would be removed.
What Yoshi-P was saying is that all the current available content of 2.X will still be available in 3.X.

As for a link about the new Heavensward quest: http://www.famitsu.com/news/201501/20069775.html
Yes, it's in japanese. The english translation given by I-don't-know-who was not giving the exact feeling Yoshi-P answer meant to have.
Basically, he's saying that the "evolving weapon" thingy is planned for 3.1. He's not speaking about the Zodiac+1 especially. He's just saying that a new questline will start in 3.1.

The only hint he gave was the answer to the next question, which was about giving a boost or bonus to players with a Zodiac+1. To which he said "yes of course".
It does mean that the Zodiac+1 won't be required to start the new 3.1 questline... but as for if the Zodiac+1 in itself will continue to evolve? Not a clue.

Worth pointing out that that interview also refers to the next stage of our Zodiacs in 2.51 as the 'ultimate' form which literally means final. The current relics are ending and a new one is starting in the expansion; there may be some bonus or perk or something for people that have a fully upgraded Zodiac by then but Yoshi makes it pretty clear in that interview that players will be working on a new weapon.

My question is "If relic weapon will have no value, then what weapons will relic user use??" Some people keep stating, "Relics are going away" So,where are they going and what happens to ALL the players who all of sudden have no weapons to use?? I wish people would only state FACTS. I really dont think a NEW player who hits 50 after the expansion will get an item level 130-140 weapon to start to upgrade as a "Expansion Relic Reborn" This wouldn't be "catch up", it would hand out.

A new player won't be hitting 50 though, they'll be hitting 60, at which point all tiers of the current relics will be outright useless for them. Do you honestly expect a new player to spend hundreds of hours running through old content that the rest of the playerbase has abandoned, simply to get a useless weapon so they can start the new tier of the relic quest? We've already had confirmation from the devs that the current questline is ending next week. That means that yes, anyone starting new in the expansion will just start the new 3.0 relic at level 60 instead. If people want the old relic for glamour they're still welcome to go back and grind the old one...

[LineageRazor]

TLDR: I hope information comes out soon about impact of old on new relics because I need inspiration to continue with the chain (and/or start the chains) on not only bard but also rogue, monk (two of which level capped and one close to level cap) but also future classes such as dark knight and machinist.

Relic weapons represent the pinnacle of what a player can achieve WITHOUT RAIDING. If you're the type of player who can simply say, "Well, why not just go raid a while and walk away with a better weapon?" then you are not who the relic progression was designed for. Many raiders who strive for relic do it either so that they have a powerful weapon to use as a stepping stone to obtain the ultimate weapon - but that's admittedly a lot of work for only slight improvements over what they could get from lesser raids.

The other reason to obtain a relic weapon is for the sense of achievement (probably the primary reason that a raider would bother with a Relic), and the pride in showing off an item that you worked really hard for. If the extreme grind and huge cost seems annoying and, above all, pointless, then you're probably better off dropping your relic progression and never looking back. Whatever else the relic progression might be, it is a whole lot of work. Folks can argue back and forth all day about the quality of the work (it's not even hard, just a huge grind!) but the fact remains that for many (maybe even MOST) people, it would be LESS work to join a raiding group and get to the point where you have Turn 13 on farm mode. A completed relic represents significant devotion to a task, even if it is a task that you (or even they!) find to be boring, monontonous, and unrewarding.

Well... to be truthful, there IS one other possible reason for sticking with it: Speculation. It's possible that someday in the future SE may "reward" relic users by adding something powerful and/or unique to the weapons, something to make the whole process worthwhile in the end. This would not be the first time SE has done something like this. In FFXI, SE added a bunch of "evolving weapons" through something called the Trials of the Magians. Some of these weapons were particularly grindy, and the end result was nice, but nothing special - at first. As the weapons continued to evolve, though, these grindy weapons got more and more bells and whistles, including extra powerful weaponskills with special buffs tacked on. These eventually came to be known as Empyrean weapons, and were competitive with the most powerful weapons in the game.

Will this ever happen with FFXIV Relics? Will they one day gain something special that propels them into a new league of weaponry? Frankly, I doubt it, but anything's possible.

[SirTaint]

There are no facts when it comes to Relics and 3.0, just a few very vague comments from the Dev team.

The "new" relic grind will start with 3.1, whether that is a continuation of the current relics, brand new relics or a mix is unknown.

SE is expecting a lot of new players with HW. I'm sure they will want to make the new quest line extremely accessible to new lvl60 characters. If they do continue the current weapons expect them to nerfed to high hell. (like 100% atma drops, 1 Animus book, 5 Alexandrite drop in stacks of 10, 100 lights, 100% drop Zodiac dungeons)

There is also 3 new jobs to consider.

[Kenji1134]

Another possibility is the idea of "character relic progression" instead of "class relic progression".

The very first time you go through the relic-zodiac-w/e progress, you have to go through the entire thing, starting from finding the weathered relic and getting it reforged. Then ATMAs, Animus Books, Nexus Grind, Zodiac Grind, etc.
However, once you complete a particular stage of relic progression, you and all associated NPCs will KNOW how to do it.
So if you now want a 2nd relic, you still have to find the weathered version and get it reforged. Here is where we change things.
Zenith costs 100 of the farmable tomestone.
Atma is 200 + get Gold on any fate in 5 specific zones.
Animus is 300 + clear 5 specific low level dungeons once.
Novus is 400 + a grade 1 materia for every unique stat you want on the Novus.
Nexus is 500 + Clear 5 specific lvl 50 dungeon once.
Zodiac is 750 + 3-5 crafted 3 star items + Clear 5 specific HM dungeons once.

That comes to 2250 tomestones, 5 fates, 5 low lvl dungeons, 5 lvl 50 dungeons, 5 more difficult lvl 50 dungeons, some grade 1 materia, and a bit of 3 star crafting.

It will still take some time, just not months. It will still get people going to lower lvl zones and dungeons, just not for hours on end. And it will make obtaining (catch-up) relic weapons for all of your classes "reasonable". Of course this process would be limited up to the most current relic/zodiac upgrade quest. So you cannot easily get relics 2 through what, 12? up to the newest state in a matter of hours. But you can get everything up to the point that you are ready to start the new quest within a few days.

[FranSeara]

So....we should ALL stop playing now???

[ZanzhizExaverion]

A recent interview, Yoshi P said that relics will continue in 3.1, how, he didn't say. But he did say your hard work will not be thrown in the trash.

[Fyce]

So....we should ALL stop playing now???

You'll still need to to through 10 levels to get from 50 to 60.
We still don't know what's the definitive EXP curve is, but it can be pretty long/grindy.
So, in short terms, the better your gear is now, the easier will be your leveling process.

If the first new dungeons are meant to be i120 minimum (for example), having Dreadwyrm/Forge gear will probably help a lot.

So yeah, if you keep doing your Relic&Zodiac quest, not only you'll have a bonus to start the new quest on the 3.1 patch, but you'll have an easier time starting 3.0 content.

However, I get your point. If you don't really want to do coil or some grindy quest for the relic, then yes, you can stop right here... and that possibility is exactly why they are releasing the Gold Saucer now: to keep you busy and entertained until 3.0 hits, since gearing up is not really a priority now.